How You Can Tell The West Wing Was Written by Writers’ Writers – Part One
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I am firmly of the belief (and have said many, many times before) that watching The West Wing is like taking a masterclass in writing. The stories, the dialogue, the characters, the construction, it’s all about as close to perfect as writing can get.
Hiding in plain sight amongst the politics and policy and drama are numerous references to the English language – writing, editing and reading. To the casual observer, they may simply be perceived as evidence of the “liberal elitist” natures of the main characters. To the more devoted observers, such as myself, they are “in” jokes that only other writers will truly appreciate.
The first four seasons of The West Wing were primarily written by Aaron Sorkin. He left the show after that and I don’t think it’s coincidental that the number of writing references dropped off significantly once he was gone. (In fact, I only found one reference that I thought was worth including from the sixth season and didn’t find any from the seventh and final season). I absolutely consider Sorkin a writer’s writer. If you don’t, well, you’re pretty much dead to me (just like that lecturer in screenwriting from the local arts college who opened an interview on our national broadcaster by declaring he didn’t care for Sorkin’s writing – I changed stations immediately).
I rewatched The West Wing in order to compile these references (not really a hardship for me considering I watch it in its entirety – all 155 episodes – every year). Even if the subject matter isn’t your thing, hopefully you can appreciate these diamonds scattered throughout the scripts and maybe even learn something. Here is part one and look out for part two next week.
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President Josiah Bartlet: “There are fourteen punctuation marks in standard English grammar. Can anyone name them please?”
CJ Cregg: “Period.”
Josh Lyman: “Comma.”
Mandy Hampton: “Colon.”
Sam Seaborn: “Semi-colon.”
Josh Lyman: “Dash.”
Sam Seaborn: “Hyphen.”
Leo McGarry: “Apostrophe.”
President Josiah Bartlet: “That’s only seven. There are seven more.”
Toby Ziegler: “Question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parentheses, braces and ellipses.”
CJ Cregg: “Ooohh.”
Toby Ziegler: “Do you call the raise, sir?”
President Josiah Bartlet: There are three words, and three words only, in the English language that begin with the letters DW.
Josh Lyman: This is a pretty good illustration of why we get nothing done.
President Josiah Bartlet: Can anyone name them for me please?
Sam Seaborn: Three words that begin with DW?
President Josiah Bartlet: Yes.
Sam Seaborn: Dwindle.
President Josiah Bartlet: Yes.
Toby Ziegler: Dwarf.
President Josiah Bartlet: Yes.
Toby Ziegler (to Sam Seaborn): C’mon, Princeton, we’ve got dwindle, we’ve got dwarf.
President Josiah Bartlet: I see your five and raise you five by the way.
Toby Ziegler: Dwarf, dwindle…
Leo McGarry: Fold.
John Lyman: Fold.
CJ Cregg: Last card down.
President Josiah Bartlet: “Witches brew a magic spell, in an enchanted forest where fairies…”
Toby Ziegler: Dwell, dwell, dwell! Dwindle, dwarf and dwell!
“Mr Willis of Ohio”, Episode 6, Season 1
Toby Ziegler: “It’s good.”
Sam Seaborn: “Yeah.”
Toby Ziegler: “It’s good.”
Sam Seaborn: “Yeah.”
Toby Ziegler: “It’s a little flat.”
Sam Seaborn: “I think so, too.”
Toby Ziegler: “My writing’s been flat lately.”
Sam Seaborn: “It’s not you, it’s me.”
Toby Ziegler: “Well, you did the best you could.”
Sam Seaborn: “What do you mean?”
Toby Ziegler: “You reached your potential here.”
Sam Seaborn: “No, I didn’t! I can do better that this.”
Toby Ziegler: “I can do better than this!”
Sam Seaborn: “Are you saying I can’t do better than this?”
Toby Ziegler: “I’m saying you’re fine and I’m flat.”
Josh Lyman: “What’s going on?”
Toby Ziegler: “We’re having difficulty locating our talent.”
Josh Lyman: “You hearing anything about the banking bill?”
Toby Ziegler: “What do you mean?”
Josh Lyman: “I’m hearing some stuff.”
Toby Ziegler: “No, we’re fine.”
Josh Lyman: “You sure?”
Toby Ziegler: “Yeah, I’m having lunch with Crane.”
Josh Lyman: “When?”
Toby Ziegler: “Lunch time.”
Josh Lyman: “I shouldn’t be nervous?”
Toby Ziegler: “No.”
Josh Lyman: “Okay.”
Toby Ziegler: “Alright. It couldn’t have gone far, right?”
Sam Seaborn: “No.”
Toby Ziegler: “Somewhere in this building is our talent.”
Sam Seaborn: “Yes.”
“Enemies”, Episode 8, Season 1
President Josiah Bartlet: “‘For the first time in three decades, the budget is balanced. From a deficit of $290 million just ten years ago—’”
Toby Ziegler: “Billion dollars.”
President Josiah Bartlet: “What?”
Toby Ziegler: “290 billion.”
President Josiah Bartlet: “What’d I say?”
Toby Ziegler: “You said million but let’s move on.”
President Josiah Bartlet: “I said million?”
Toby Ziegler: “Yep.”
President Josiah Bartlet: “‘From a deficit of $290 billion just ten…’ You know it says million on the teleprompter by the way.”
Toby Ziegler: “Sam?”
Sam Seaborn: “Our fault.”
President Josiah Bartlet: “Let’s take it back.”
…
President Josiah Bartlet: “‘I came to this hallowed chamber one year ago…’ And I see we’re spelling hallowed with a pound sign in the middle of it.”
Sam Seaborn: “We’ll fix that.”
President Josiah Bartlet: “The pound sign is silent?”
Leo McGarry: “Move on, Mr President.”
President Josiah Bartlet: “‘I came to this hallowed chamber one year ago today on a mission: to restore the American dream for all people as we gaze at the vast horizon of possibilities open to us in the 321st century.’ Wow, that was ambitious of me, wasn’t it?”
Sam Seaborn: “Leo?”
Leo McGarry: “Let’s take a break.”
President Josiah Bartlet: “We meant stronger here, right?”
Sam Seaborn: “What’s it say?”
President Josiah Bartlet: “‘I’m proud to report our country’s stranger than it was a year ago.’”
Sam Seaborn: “That’s a typo.”
President Josiah Bartlet: “Could go either way.”
Toby Ziegler: “Sam?”
Sam Seaborn: “I’ll take care of it.”
“He Shall, From Time to Time…”, Episode 12, Season 1
President Josiah Bartlet: “‘If the shoe fits’?”
Toby Ziegler: “It’s a little bit worse actually.”
President Josiah Bartlet: “‘When reporters confronted Secretary O’Leary in the hallway outside the hearing room, she defended—’ Oh, come on!”
Leo McGarry: “Don’t worry about it.”
President Josiah Bartlet: “Leo!”
Leo McGarry: “I’ll take care of it. Is she on her way here?”
Josh Lyman: “She’ll be here in half an hour.”
Charles Young: “Mr President?”
President Josiah Bartlet: “Yeah. Let’s go. ‘If the shoe fits.’ Is that the best she could do?”
Leo McGarry: “Of her many transgressions, Mr President, let’s not worry about she resorted to cliché.”
“Celestial Navigation”, Episode 15, Season 1
Toby Ziegler: “Any time you want to use punctuation, that’d be fine.”
“Mandatory Minimums”, Episode 20, Season 1
Joey Lucas: “It’s ludicrous to think that laws need to be created to protect the language of Shakespeare.”
“Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics”, Episode 21, Season 1
Toby Ziegler: “Let me know if you need me on Captain Queeg.”
“And It’s Surely to Their Credit”, Episode 5, Season 2
Sam Seaborn: “You think a communist never wrote an elegant phrase? How do you think they got everybody to be communists?”
“The Portland Trip”, Episode 7, Season 2
President Josiah Bartlet: “The number of different words they had for ‘manipulative’, Leo, there’s no way they didn’t have a thesaurus open in front of them.”
“The Drop-In”, Episode 12, Season 2
President Josiah Barlet: “Hackery! This guy was a hack. He had a captive audience and the way I know that was I tried to tunnel out of there several times. He had an audience and he didn’t know what to do with it.”
Abigail Bartlet: “You want him to sing ‘Volare’?”
President Josiah Barlet: “It wouldn’t have hurt. Words! Words, when spoken out loud for the sake of performance, are music. They have rhythm and pitch and timbre and volume. These are the properties of music and music has the ability to find us and move us and lift us up in ways that literal meaning can’t. Do you see?”
Abigail Bartlet: “You are an oratorical snob.”
President Josiah Bartlet: “Yes, I am. And God loves me for it.”
“Gone Quiet”, Episode 6, Season 3
Lisa Sherborne: “Why is it so hard?”
Sam Seaborn: “Because it’s a white piece of paper.”
“The Two Bartlets”, Episode 12, Season 3
Abigail Bartlet: “Women talk about their husbands overshadowing their careers. Mine got eaten.”
CJ Cregg: “Your husband got eaten?”
Abigail Bartlet: “My career.”
CJ Cregg: “Yeah, well, I’m on dangling modifier patrol.”
“Dead Irish Writers”, Episode 15, Season 3
TV Anchor: “I mentioned Governor Richie’s book because I was hoping you’d rise to the bait.”
President Josiah Bartlet: “There’ll be plenty of bait in September/October.”
TV Anchor: “Have you read the book?”
President Josiah Bartlet: “I’ll read it when he does.”
“The US Poet Laureate”, Episode 16, Season 3
